


Prayers to Dogs

by HPFanficClub



Series: HPFanficClub Group Writes [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Marauders, Pining, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:07:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27444613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HPFanficClub/pseuds/HPFanficClub
Summary: HPFanficClub's Group Write for October 2020Prompt;Remus took a shaky breath. After a very long summer, he had decided he was finally ready to tell Sirius how he felt - or maybe not.Writers;JMilz, Lunatik_Pandora, la_topolina, TakingFlight48, Power_Of_Anime_Girl_23, JessiRomantic, moj0joj0
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Series: HPFanficClub Group Writes [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2000644
Comments: 4
Kudos: 39





	Prayers to Dogs

**Author's Note:**

> Discord server HPFanFicClub do a group write each month where our users take turns to complete a fic starting with a basic prompt!
> 
> If you'd like to join in, follow the link below to join us!
> 
> https://discord.com/invite/harrypotterfanficclub

There was a spider crawling across his ceiling above his head. Remus hoped it might eat the fly that had been buzzing about his bedroom since his friends had left on Saturday. This fly had no concept of personal space. If Sirius -- who admittedly also had no concept of personal space-- were still here, he'd likely challenge them all to a contest to see who could swat it first, which would rapidly devolve into the four of them swatting each other instead.

Remus was glad he'd see them tomorrow, even if it had only been four days. He was also dreading it.

Pining was a strange word. He rolled it around his head slowly, examining its angles and curves. The etymology of it. Pining. From the Old English pīnian. Meaning 'suffering.' German peinen, 'to cause pain.' Ultimately stemming from the Latin poena, or 'punishment.' All of these were highly accurate ways to describe the way he'd felt all this past month his friends had stayed over, and Sirius had decided it was too bloody hot to be in a tangle of sweaty boy-limbs with Pete and James in the makeshift bed on the floor, so he'd climbed in with Remus to make a tangle of sweaty boy-limbs with him instead.

He'd scarcely been able to sleep for watching Sirius in his tiny bed. Four inches between the tips of their noses, impossibly long dark lashes brushing the tops of his cheekbones, his tongue sticking slightly out through his teeth as he slept, making those stupid little wheezy noises that weren't quite snores but also sort of were. He'd looked ridiculous, and Remus felt ridiculous because he was close enough to kiss him and he wanted to but didn't.

Just like always, with everything: wanted to, but didn't. Pining.

Maybe I should just tell him and get it over with, Remus thought bitterly. Put me out of my bloody misery. What was the worst that could happen?

Nothing. Everything. But surely anything was better than this.

Remus watched the spider weaving in the corner of his bedroom and didn't sleep.

  
  


James was the first to arrive.

Some part of Remus was quite thankful for him, but there was a nagging voice in the back of his head cursing him, wanting nothing more than for him to go home and for Peter to never show. Then, he would have Sirius all to himself. Then, they would be alone.

Alas, it would not have mattered. He could spend a million days alone with Sirius, and still, he wouldn't confess a thing. Instead, he would simply watch him, drink him in, hoping and fearing and aching all at the same time.

Pining.

"You all right, Moony?"

James's voice tugged him back into reality.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm all right. They're late, though."

James gave him a sceptical look.

"They're always late."

  
  


James was oddly punctual for someone who worked hard to show a devil-may-care face to the world. Perhaps it had been ingrained in him by his long-suffering mother, much the way the Pureblood manners and the declensions of Latin nouns had been ingrained into him. His punctuality coupled with Sirius's constant tardiness had saved them all that fateful night when Sirius's jokes had taken a nearly fatal turn. If James hadn't been the first to arrive in the passage to the Shrieking Shack that night, Remus would have been branded a murderer. He'd be in Azkaban right now, feeding his happiness (whatever that was) to the Dementors a spoonful at a time.

If it had happened that way, would he still pine for Sirius, even there?

  
  


Probably.

Remus was fairly certain that Sirius could do bloody anything and Remus would still forgive him. Still want him. Still love him.

Pining

  
  


"Well, when they get here, don't be so . . . quiet."

"Quiet? What d'you mean?"

"You know. You've been quiet all summer," James pointed out. "It isn't like you."

"I have not."

"You have," he insisted. "And I know you feel bad for what happened to Snape but - "

"But what?" Remus snapped. "But it was all harmless fun? Please, James. If you hadn't been there I would've killed him."

"It was a bad prank. And Sirius knows it. All I'm saying is he's sorry and when he gets here . . . Well, just don't treat him so badly, okay?"

"Treat him badly? Since when have I treated him badly?"

"Oh, come off it, Moony! You've been ignoring him all summer! You make quite the point of it whenever we're all here or at mine!" James hissed. "He's sorry. And it won't happen again. He gets it now."

Remus frowned. He was not trying to treat Sirius badly. In fact, he had barely given the Snape incident much thought since the beginning of summer. Only little things like James's constant earliness or the turn of the moon served as reminders, and even then, the thought was gone as quickly as it came.

He was too busy thinking. Wishing.

Pining.

Suddenly, there was a knock at the front door. The shuffling of feet was heard, followed by the booming voice of Remus's father.

"Remus! Your little friends are here!"(edited)

  
  


Remus knew, logically, that Sirius would be in the kitchen with Pete, waiting for them. He also knew that James would be expecting him to act naturally as if his heart weren't making a valiant attempt to burst through his ribcage and hurl itself across the room directly into Sirius' hands.

His strangely delicate, long-fingered hands, with the carefully bitten nails and the thin scar just above the second knuckle on his right middle finger. With the freckle in the middle of his left palm.

Hands which Sirius was currently running through his own dark hair as he swept it back from his face.

Act naturally. Right.

James was greeting their friends with his usual effusive warmth, and Remus could only smile weakly, hands in his pockets. His heart had lodged itself in his throat.

There were no words. There was only pining.

But he had to say something.

"Hungry?" Remus asked because of course all problems could be solved with food. The biggest problem of his sixteen-year-old life looked him in the eye and shrugged.

"I could eat. What did you have in mind?"

(Only the way his hair kept falling across his eyes. Only the way his lips moved as he spoke. Only how they might taste against his own.)

"I, erm… sandwiches?" His voice cracked slightly. Sirius' right eyebrow was slowly climbing, questioning, and Remus felt himself blushing, wanting to sink into the Earth and die. "I could… erm... yeah. I'll just… go… do that."

He ducked into the pantry -- a tactical retreat, he assured himself -- and found himself glaring at a box of Weetabix as though it had mortally offended him.

"Why am I like this?" he whispered to no one in particular.

"Dunno, but that was painful to watch."

Remus startled, knocking several boxes off the shelf.

Peter was standing behind him, visibly biting back laughter.

  
  


"Alright lads?" James’ concerned voice boomed at them from the other room.

"We're fine, I just knocked the shelf!" Peter called back, deadpan, his eyes dancing with amusement. He could hear James and Sirius laughing; typical clumsy Wormtail. Ha bloody ha.

"What are you doing?" Remus hissed at him. He could feel his face beginning to heat up again and cursed his fair complexion.

"Making sure you didn't spontaneously combust," Peter whispered back amiably. "You're about as subtle as a bludger, you know."

Remus frowned at him; he knew perfectly well the nature of the stake he’d tied himself to -- this endless, agonizing pining -- and was committed to suffering in silence. He couldn’t speak it aloud without screaming.

But Peter couldn’t know. There was no way.

Remus began fussing with the boxes he’d knocked over, pretending to check them for damage as he placed them back on the shelf.

"Are you going to lecture me about being nice to Sirius too?"

Peter eyed him shrewdly for a moment before rolling his eyes, snorting softly.

"Right. Look, I know it's none of my business--"

"It really isn't--"

"Fuck off, Remus, I know this isn't about Snape, alright?"

Peter had always been the most insightful of his friends, so it really shouldn't have come as such a surprise, and yet Remus found himself shocked into stillness -- into staring -- all the same.

Peter couldn’t know. He couldn’t. But he was looking at Remus like he did.

"What do you mean?"

Peter huffed impatiently; it was an unsettling role reversal.

"I mean you're not half as stupid as you're acting right now, and neither is he." He snatched a bag of crisps off the shelf and shoved it into Remus' chest. "Figure it out, mate."

Peter turned and walked back to the kitchen, leaving Remus to burn alone.

  
  


He was not sure how long he stood there, all on his own. The plastic bag crinkled in his distressed grip until finally, it burst at the seam with a loud pop, causing Remus to jump, and his father to shout at him.

"What'd I tell you about poppin' them crisp bags? Nearly stops my heart, it does!"

"Sorry, Dad!"

It was this that pulled him back into the present. The clock was ticking and, in the next room over, his three friends were chattering away.

Or rather, two of them were.

"Oh, come off it! It'll be a cold day in hell when they win a match, let alone the whole bloody thing!"

"It will not," Peter insisted. "The Bats are better than the Cannons!"

"Well, that doesn't take much," James muttered. "Oi! Sirius, you alright?"

Remus' breath hitched.

"What? Oh, er - yeah. Yeah, I'm alright."

"What d'you think? You think the Bats are gonna make it to the finals this year?"

"Erm - if it's a cold day in hell for their next . . . half-dozen matches? Yeah, maybe they could make it."

Remus heard the smile in his voice and he could not help but smile too.

His stomach, however, was churning.

"Remus! You coming with those crisps or not? I'm hungry!" James barked. "Ow! What? I'm a growing boy!"

Remus chuckled and started back towards his bedroom. After all, even if Peter did know, what was the worst that could happen? He was too cowardly to say anything in front of James or Sirius.

Then again, so was Remus, and that was the problem.

  
  


Upon reaching the bedroom, James made a beeline for Remus' record shelf, digging through it like an overeager niffler.

"What are we in the mood for today, lads?"

'Lads', he always called them, like they weren't all on the cusp of manhood. A fact Remus was acutely aware of as Sirius threw himself onto the bed, stretching out cat-like across the sheets, letting out a lewd groan. His shirt had ridden up over his hips, exposing a line of pale skin above the waistband of his denim jeans, his hair fanned out behind his head like a soft, dark halo.

Remus bit into his sandwich a bit more savagely than was strictly necessary.

"Brain Salad Surgery?" Peter offered, tossing a crisp at Sirius and hitting him squarely in the eye, earning him a rude hand gesture and a pillow to the face.

"Not nearly stoned enough to listen to the same song for a full thirty minutes," James muttered scornfully. It was one of the kinder things he'd said about ELP, so Remus counted it as a win. "How about Floyd?"

"Yeah, ah... speaking of not being stoned enough… maybe T. Rex? I like Electric Warrior."

"Nah."

James and Pete bickered back and forth at length, shooting down the Yardbirds, three separate Zeppelin albums, and Bowie, the picky bastards. They were rapidly running out of options.

Remus found he didn't have much of an opinion. There were more important things to consider, like how Sirius was watching him from the bed from beneath those dark lashes, a slow grin spreading across his face like warm honey. It widened when Remus gave Sirius a small, shy smile. A peace offering.

If he stopped thinking about it for more than a second, he could almost pretend that Sirius was pining for him too.

  
  


A sudden whip crack laugh from James jolted him out of his thoughts, and Remus whirled on him, equally startled and annoyed. James gestured around his mouth, biting back giggles with middling success.

"You have mustard, just… all over your face, mate."

Well. That certainly explained why Sirius was staring. Made more sense than mutual pining, he supposed. Remus rubbed his hand across his mouth self-consciously. James shook his head.

"You missed it, it's up here." He tapped the side of his mouth, almost on his cheek. Remus felt a mounting horror as he rubbed at his face again.

"Is it gone?" He certainly wished he was.

"Wrong side." He swiped again. James shook his head again, laughing. "Jesus Christ, Remus."

"Moony, I've a question," Peter broke in, sniggering as he leaned back in his rickety old desk chair. "How are you such a bloody disaster?"

"Oh, shut it, both of you! I'm trying!" And he was: trying to keep his composure and not melt into a mustard-stained puddle of humiliation on the floor. It wasn't bloody funny. He swiped at his face again.

This is what he got for trying to flirt.

"Leave off, arseholes," Sirius bit out sharply, glaring at them rather fiercely. Remus was shocked: Sirius snapping at Peter was half of their dynamic, but for him to put his foot down with James was unheard of. Strangely, they both listened. James raised his hands placatingly; Pete slowly lowered all four chair legs to the floor, looking sheepish.

Sirius rolled over and off the bed, reaching over to pull Quadrophenia off the shelf and place it on the record player without awaiting further input, dropping the needle before moving to stand directly in front of Remus. The ghost of the grin he had worn before was still playing about the corners of his lips.

Not that Remus was staring or anything.

  
  


"Here," Sirius said softly, swiping the pad of his thumb across Remus' cheek -- just under his cheekbone, which was nowhere near where James had been directing, the berk. "Only you would almost get mustard in your eye."

His tone was teasing, but gently so. Remus found it didn't sting.

"I'm a man of many talents," he deadpanned, unsure where he had found the power to speak, let alone the emotional fortitude to keep his voice steady while Sirius' hand lingered just a heartbeat too long on his face.

The grin returned in force.

"So you are."

  
  


It did not take long for Remus to decide that he was not, in fact, a man of many talents.

Sirius had stretched across his bed as they played a game of Exploding Snap, and with one crack of his spine, that little bit of midriff was showing again.

"You've got about ten seconds til that explodes, mate," James said.

Peter tapped the matching card with his wand, apparently, because Remus didn't hear an explosion.

"Your turn, Moony."

Remus turned the card. Alas, Sirius was stretching again, and he had completely forgotten what he was doing.

Of course, he couldn't be blamed. Sirius was in his bed. With his midriff showing. And there was a trail of dark hair that led to his -

The card exploded in Remus' hand, singeing his eyebrows and blackening his fingertips. James and Peter roared with laughter, but still, he was entranced - so entranced that he could barely hear them.

He was deafened by reality, deafened by the fact that he would never stop screwing up, that he would never stop pining.

"Gonna have to get a potion for those eyebrows, Moony," Sirius said. "You don't have much of your right one left."

Remus forced a smile, but really, he thought he was going to be sick.

  
  


"His furry little problem will have that mended faster than a potion," James scoffed and Remus could feel Sirius' gaze on him, steady. Steadier than his heart; steadier than the shaking of his hand as he watched Sirius' own lift to brush against the singed hair.

Yet all he could focus on, all he could let his mind relive was the skin, the hair, the trail, the path, the potential of that movement towards areas that he had only dreamed of.

"What do you think, Moony," Sirius' chuckle, so much closer than moments before, forcing his gaze off where his friend had been draped for him to admire. "Think you need help asking for some potion?"

"No, no, it'll be fine," and he couldn't have stopped the fluttering of his eyes as those calloused fingertips finally landed on his own skin.

The last thing he needed was his father wondering just why Remus was incapable of keeping 1st year playing cards from causing any real damage to himself.

"Your turn, Pads," James finally said, the laughter from the other half of their group finally calming down, finally taking in the galloping of his heart and hopefully ignoring it. But it was not to be. "Unless you want Remus staring at you like that all night long. Then Petey and I can gladly go get some more snacks."

Eyes widening he slid off his bed quickly, sending James a half-hearted sneer and a laugh that fooled exactly no one, "I'm going to go wash this up. You still hungry? Crisps weren't enough?"

Without waiting for a response he made a beeline for his bedroom door; he didn't think he was going to be sick this time, now for certain, he knew he would be.

  
  


Remus stood at the door, reaching for the doorknob, his body trembled in fear and his breathing shook.

Making his way to the bathroom without being noticed, once he was there, he wasn’t able to calm his anxiety down, Remus had fainted with a thud.

  
  


"Maybe he smelled your shoes on the way out the room, Pete."

"Oh, leave off, James. We've lived in a dorm room together for 6 years. My feet aren't the trouble."

He had fainted. Actually fainted. Merlin, why wouldn't the floor just swallow him?

  
  


"Is he alright? It's not like him to pass out like that."

Sirius sounded worried. Part of Remus wanted to open his eyes and let him know he was alive -- physically, at least -- just to chase the fear out of his voice.

But... it couldn't be fear. Sirius wasn't afraid of anything.

(Was he?)

Two fingers pressed just under his jaw, feeling for his pulse. His heart hammered traitorously against them.

(This is getting ridiculous.)

"The heat maybe?"

"Maybe," Sirius hedged, and there was an odd note to his voice. "Pete, could you and Jamie run downstairs and get some ice and… I dunno, a glass of juice or something?"

"Pumpkin?" Remus fought down the urge to gag.

"No, he hates pumpkin." Thank Merlin for Sirius Black. "Orange, no pulp; if there is only with-pulp, add a little water so he's at least not having to chew it."

"How do you know that?"

Pete brought up a very good point; that was a frightening amount of detail into Remus' beverage preferences.

He was not going to overanalyse this at all.

"How do you not?"

"Alright," James broke in pointedly. "We'll be right back. C'mon, Wormy."

There was a shuffle, followed shortly by the sounds of two sets of footsteps disappearing down the stairs.

Sirius sighed.

"You can stop playing dead now."

  
  


Sirius poked Remus in the cheek, bored with the hullabaloo.

"It's not that funny. In fact, it wasn't funny at all," but Remus didn't move. Sirius knelt down next to him, getting closer and closer his breath tickled the little hairs of Sirius's non-moustache. Then he kissed Remus on the cheek.

Remus's commitment to this... game was inextricable but dedicated; his face turned red as a strawberry but did nothing else to give himself away. Sirius was sure that Remus was fine but--

"Okay, Mooney," Sirius grunted as he wiggled his arms under Remus's armpits. "I think it's time for you to cool down," and dragged Remus over to the tub and placed him in. He was surprisingly heavy for someone so stringy and a lot warmer than he would have guessed. It was... scandalous somehow. Down the hall, the thumping of sock-padded feet boomed through the wooden stairs.

His own cheeks now beginning to flush, Sirius kicked on the shower's cold setting.

  
  


Remus let out a yelp, a string of expletives flying from his lips that would have earned him three weeks of weeding the garden if his mam had heard.

Thankfully, she wasn't home.

Instead, there was Sirius: standing over Remus, arms crossed and grinning widely.

“I knew you were awake.”

Remus glared up at him behind his newly sopping wet fringe. He had viciously shoved down all thought of that fleeting kiss, his cheek no longer tingling where Sirius’ warm lips had pressed.

There was no more pining. There was only revenge.

He reached up and looped an arm firmly around Sirius’ hips, yanking him off-balance and into the tub.

Directly into Remus’ lap.

Sirius let out an ear-splitting shriek as the cold water hit him, pressing himself into Remus’ chest, flailing as he attempted to avoid it. Remus ignored his closeness, cupping his hands and pouring the water onto the back of Sirius’ neck.

“Oh for the love of--!” Remus looked up to see James and Pete standing in the doorway. “I leave you two miscreants for ninety bleeding seconds and you manage to create chaos. Without me.”

James swept a hand over his brow, pretending to swoon dramatically.

“Shameful, it is,” Pete said with faux-seriousness, setting the glass of juice on top of the sink.

“Help! Moony’s torturing me!”

Pete and James exchanged A Look.

“Seems to me you might have earned this one, mate,” James said, shrugging. Sirius gaped at him.

Remus soon joined him in his astonishment as both boys exited the bathroom, followed by the telltale sucking sound of the Colloportus charm on the door.

They were locked in.

Panic began to set in.

“Oi!” Remus could hear them sniggering on the other side of the door.

“Figure it out!” James and Pete shouted back in unison, their footsteps soon vanishing down the hall once more.

Remus looked back at Sirius, still sitting in his lap, wide-eyed and soaking wet. They were both beginning to shiver.

He was done for.

He was so done for.

Remus' eyes darted back to the locked door silently cursing at his two traitorous friends. The room stilled except for the sound of the cold water plummeting on their heads. Remus' heart beating faster in his chest.

Remus shifted his gaze back to a trembling Sirius whose matted hair draped over his face in a way that caused Remus to give a small chuckle.

He looks like a quite handsome dog.

"Turn the bloody water off Moony!" Sirius exclaimed, shedding his soaking wet shirt, nearly elbowing Remus in the process.

Sirius tossed the shirt haphazardly feet away from the bathtub though Remus' gaze stayed glued to the other teen's tan body, studying every muscle flexing. Time seemed to crawl. Tattoos of various symbols spread across Sirius' torso and a large one of a moon on his stomach. Grey eyes met his. Remus swallowed, his throat starting to feel dry even with cool water washing over his lips.

"Remus! Why are--"

Pinning is over

Remus brought their bodies together, pressing his lips against Sirius' as the other squeaked in response.

It took him approximately two and a half seconds to realise that he was kissing Sirius -- kissing Sirius! -- and that he tasted like… well, a bit like crisps, to be honest. His lips were soft and warm and a little chapped, and he tasted like crisps.

He also wasn’t kissing back.

Remus jerked back as though Sirius’ lips had burned him. The other boy was staring at him, wearing a dazed expression as though he’d been clubbed over the head with a Beater's bat. Remus put his head in his hands.

He’d thought he couldn’t get any more mortified after the repeated embarrassing missteps in his room, but this... this was catastrophic. Sirius would be kind about it, he was certain -- because he was, at heart, truly very kind, even if he sometimes did stupid, idiotic, impulsive things -- and Remus wasn’t quite certain he could stomach hearing Sirius let him down easy.

He wouldn’t have any choice, though. They were trapped in his tiny, dingy bathroom with the chipped tiles, and Remus wanted to drown himself in the bloody toilet.

Because Sirius sometimes did stupid, idiotic, impulsive things, but so did Remus.

He dragged his hands back through his wet, tangled curls. Sirius was touching his fingers to his lips gently, still wearing that dazed look as he opened his mouth to speak.

“Remus--”

“I am so sorry, I completely bloody misread that, obviously--”

“Remus, I--”

“I just wasn’t thinking, and I should have known better, I mean obviously, but I did it anyway--”

“Remus, would you--”

“A-and I understand if you’re uncomfortable, and I swear it won’t ever happen again--”

“REMUS!” Sirius bellowed, startling him out of his panicked monologue; his heart was nearly vibrating out of his chest. “For fuck’s sake, shut up, will you?”

Remus closed his mouth with an audible click.

Suddenly, Sirius' strangely delicate hands were on either side of Remus' face, cupping his jaw, drawing him in, and -- oh.

He was kissing him back.

  
  


James opened the door and poked his head into the room, looking around to see the results of Operation Moonage Daydream -- so named after Pete’s favourite Bowie song, which James had thought was punny enough to stand. He was sure Sirius would appreciate it, later, if he didn’t strangle them.

Though, by the looks of it, there wouldn’t be much strangling on the menu.

“Alright, lads?”

Sirius was sitting on the edge of the bathtub, a towel wrapped around his bare shoulders. Remus was sitting close beside him, their thighs pressed together, his arm around Sirius’ waist. The incredible tension between the two of them had finally dissipated.

Sirius grinned at him, and for the first time since The Incident, it reached his eyes.

“Alright, Prongsie!”

“Remus?”

Remus swept a stray curl out of his eyes, smiling easily -- and oh, was that a bloody relief to see.

“You couldn’t have locked us in the bedroom?” That classic Lupin snark was on full display. James had missed it terribly these last few weeks.

“In the interest of full disclosure, that was the initial plan. We did not, however, account for the Sirius element.” Remus scoffed at him.

“Well that was your first mistake,” he said mildly, arching a brow at him. “What’s the first rule of mischief-making?”

“No man left behind?”

“The other first rule.”

“...No plan survives contact with Padfoot,” James mumbled, realising his error. Sirius’ eyes darted between the two of them, a gleeful expression on his face. Remus nudged him, and a brief, playful shoving match erupted between the two.

“Have they kissed and made up yet?” Pete called from down the hall.

Sirius leaned in to press a kiss firmly against Remus’ cheek, the two of them giggling like idiots.

“Yeah, Pete,” James called back, grinning. “Reckon we’re alright now.”


End file.
